Warm and Witty Side of Attila the Hun (7 page)

"
Sho'nuff
?" Sam replies. "Who did de white folk
nomernate
?"

The Republicans countered with genealogical records, baptismal certificates, birth
certificates, etc. etc. etc., to prove that Harding was of Anglo-Saxon, Scots-Irish, and Dutch ancestry, and this put the issue to rest. Harding was elected in a landslide, and his party kept control of the Senate and took control of the House.

But one final comment from Harding himself is interesting. When asked about the
accusation that one of his ancestors was a black woman from the West Indies, he smiled and
said, "Who knows? One of my ancestors may have jumped the fence."

 

Harding's successor, Calvin Coolidge, was popularly known as "Silent Cal," because of a
well deserved reputation for a disinclination to say anything. "I was never hurt by anything I
didn't say," he once remarked. Three examples:

One: At a social gathering, an acquaintance approached him and said, "Mr. President, I
bet someone ten dollars that I could get you to say three words in a row." Coolidge replied, "You
lose."

Two: When a congressman arrived at the White House for a scheduled meeting with the
president he was dismayed to see a particularly loquacious senator preceding him. He sat down sadly, expecting to have at least an hour's wait; but the talkative senator walked out after fifteen
minutes. When the Representative entered Coolidge's office, he said, "Mr. President, whenever I
have to meet with that fellow, I can't get rid of him for an hour at least, but you got rid of him
real quick! How did you do it? What am I doing wrong?" Coolidge replied, "You talk back to him."

Three: Vice-president Coolidge had succeeded to the presidency upon the death of President Harding, had been elected in his own right in 1924, and was eligible for reelection in
1928. He had not indicated whether he would indeed run again when the press was summoned to
his country home in Vermont to hear an announcement. Pens and pencils at the ready, the reporters awaited the presence of the president with eager anticipation. Eventually Coolidge
arrived, took a piece of paper from his pocket, and read the words, "I do not choose to run for
reelection." He then folded up the paper and left. He never said another word about it.

When in 1924 Coolidge's death was announced, writer Dorothy Parker inquired, "How can they tell?"

 

Effective presidential leadership is often as much a matter of style as of substance. No better contrast can be found than the one between two sequential chief executives, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt. Whatever one's opinions may be of their policies, it cannot be
denied that their personalities could not have been more different. A good example of this can be seen in their respective responses to the Bonus Army.

In 1924 veterans of the First World War and the families of casualties had been issued
Service Certificates which were very similar to savings bonds. They had a cash value redeemable
twenty years after the date of issue, i.e., in 1944. But when the Great Depression began in 1929, a movement began among veterans for an early payment of what they called their "bonus."

In the spring of 1932, 43,000 protesters, calling themselves the "Bonus Expeditionary
Force" converged on Washington.
The press nicknamed them the Bonus Army. President Hoover was
concerned that this large mass of angry people constituted a threat to public safety, and feared that a riot might break out at any moment. To forestall this, Hoover ordered Colonel Douglas
MacArthur to "clear them out," which he proceeded to do with elements of infantry and cavalry.
Precise casualty numbers are unknown, but there were numerous deaths.

The next year, after Roosevelt entered the White House,
the Bonus Army reassembled in Washington to confront FDR with the same demand. He sent
his wife Eleanor, who frequently acted as her disabled husband's representative, to speak with
the leaders and urge them to have their followers apply for work with the Works Progress Administration. As she left his office, FDR told his wife, "Make sure they all have lots of coffee!" Eleanor commandeered as many coffee urns as she could get her hands on for this
purpose.

The Bonus Army ended up building the Florida Keys Highway connecting the Florida
mainland to Key West, and their bonus was eventually paid ten years early. But the presidential
leadership difference was best encapsulated in the press, one of whose headlines read:

 

HOOVER SENT TROOPS

ROOSEVELT SENT ELEANOR

ELEANOR BROUGHT COFFEE

 

Anastasio
Somoza was "president" of
Nicaragua
from 1930 until his assassination in
1950 and, like many Central American and Caribbean dictators, was both a brutal oppressor of
his own people and a faithful client of the
United States
. When Franklin Roosevelt was discussing Somoza with his cabinet, one member objected to giving him our support. When
Roosevelt
asked why, the reply was, "Because I think he's a son of a bitch."

"Of course he's a son of a bitch," FDR replied. "But he's
our
son of a bitch."

 

Most people are aware of the fact that JFK's speech in
Berlin
in 1961 contained the phrase
"
Ich
bin
ein
Berliner"
which is in the context of the speech means "I am a Berliner," but which can also be translated as "I am a jelly donut." (Proper German:
Ich
bin Berliner
, without the indefinite article.
Ein
Berliner
is a confectionary.) Less well known is the potentially lethal translation error that
occurred in the White House early in 1947.

The wartime alliance of the United States and the Soviet Union had begun to deteriorate almost before the war itself ended, and negotiations between the two governments had grown
acrimonious and heated. President Harry Truman arranged a meeting the Soviet foreign minister,
Vyacheslav
Molotov, in an attempt reach some
modus
vivendi
.
Present at the meeting were only
four people: Truman, Molotov, and two translators, in keeping with standard diplomatic practice.
Truman's American translator told Truman what Molotov was saying, and Molotov's Soviet
translator told Molotov what Truman was saying.

The translation problem arose from the Soviet translator's lack of familiarity with certain American idioms.

If we are going to restore amicable relations, Truman meant to say, we are going to have to discuss serious matters frankly. What he actually said, in his customary rural American idiom,
was, "If we're going to bury the hatchet, we've got to talk turkey."

Apparently, the Soviet translator had no idea what Truman was talking about, so he
translated the president's words as, "If there is to be war, let it be with the Turks."

The American translator quickly corrected the error, fortunately for everyone concerned (especially the Turks.)

 

Truman had a well-documented temper and no compunction about expressing it. Three
examples follow.

One: At the 1944 Democratic convention, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy (father of the
later president) was working against the
renomination
of FDR. Kennedy had been an isolationist
before Pearl Harbor, and he blamed FDR for using the Japanese attack as an excuse to ally
ourselves with Britain and Russia against Germany. When his eldest son Joseph Jr. joined the army and was shot down and killed by the Germans, his dislike of Roosevelt turned to hatred.

Kennedy was bad-mouthing FDR incessantly behind closed doors, which was beginning to make Truman's blood boil. At last Kennedy confronted Truman and demanded, "Why the hell
are you supporting the son of a bitch that killed my boy Joe?"

Senator Truman thereupon grabbed Ambassador Kennedy by the lapels, pushed him up against a wall, and said, "If you say one more word against the president, I'm gonna throw you out the goddamned window!" Kennedy quieted down.

Two: The removal of General MacArthur for insubordination during the Korean War is well known. Less well known is that before removing him, when an aide asked Truman if he was
going to ask for MacArthur's resignation, the president replied testily, "No, I'm not gonna ask
for his resignation! I'm
gonna
fire
the son of a bitch!"

Three: Truman's daughter Margaret (later a very successful author of murder mysteries set in Washington) was taking voice lessons during her father's presidency, and she gave a concert for charity. A newspaper critic chose to review the concert as if it were a professional performance instead of what it actually was, an amateur performing to raise money for a good cause, and in his review he absolutely savaged her, criticizing everything from her voice to her demeanor to her comportment. An outraged Truman sent the critic a handwritten letter telling
him exactly what he thought of him. The letter ended with the words, "If I ever meet you face to
face, you're going to need a bridge and a supporter." Truman later explained that he intended at first to threaten to punch him the mouth and kick him in the balls, but his wife Bess talked him
into phrasing it more delicately. (When someone once suggested to Bess that she get Harry to clean up
his language, she replied, "It's taken me twenty years to get him to say manure.")

 

Bess Truman hated politics and had absolutely no desire to be First Lady. (In fact, she
spent much of Truman's presidency back home in
Independence
,
Missouri
.) But when FDR died
and Truman succeeded him, Bess found herself thrust unwillingly into the unwanted role.

She was told that as First Lady she should meet with what was then called the Ladies' Press Corps, and she grudgingly agreed. She answered all of the reporters' questions with
monosyllables or noncommittal gestures and an occasional harrumph. At last one of the reporters said, "Mrs. Roosevelt used to meet with us every Monday morning. When will you be
holding your press conferences?"

"This is it," replied Bess. And it was!

 

Anyone who has ever gone through the ordeal of giving up cigarettes will appreciate
President Eisenhower's comment on the experience. Ike was a four-pack-a-day smoker, but when
he had a heart attack in the middle of his first term he of course had to stop cold turkey. When asked if he would ever start smoking again, he answered, "I don't know about that, but one
thing's for damned sure: I'll never
stop
smoking again!"

 

Most political figures are to some degree egotists, but Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) raised egotism to new heights. He was fascinated, for example, by his own initials. His wife's
given name was Claudia, but he had her change it to Lady Bird, so that her initials would be LBJ also. He named his daughters Lynda Bird and Lucy Baines. His dog was named Little Beagle
Johnson, for Pete's sake!

Anyone with so dominant an ego would of course love the power of the presidency. The
story goes that when President Johnson was visiting South Vietnam a nervous young soldier on
the U.S. airbase was given the task of directing him to the correct helicopter. When the young man said to him, "Mr. President, that's your helicopter over there," LBJ put his huge, bearlike
arm around him and said, "Son, they're
all
my helicopters!"

 

Many men have a very hard time uttering the two simple words, "I'm sorry." (Many
women will agree with this comment.) This quality was particularly true of Lyndon Johnson.

When Detroit's inner city erupted in race riots in the summer of 1966, Johnson sent troops to
quell the disturbance. He also appointed a task force to go to Detroit to investigate. Roger
Wilkens
, a black member of the task force, recalled that in a closed meeting before they left for Michigan a very agitated president said of his troops, "I don't want any bullets in those guns. I
don't want any bullets in those guns! I
don't
want any
bullets
in those
gunsl
I don't want any of my men to go and shoot a pregnant nig—" Then, remembering Wilkins' presence, he stopped
speaking for a moment before returning to the issue at hand.

When the meeting was over, LBJ asked
Wilkens
to stay behind. He obviously wanted to
say something conciliatory, to somehow apologize for his truncated words, but could not bring himself to do so. He led
Wilkens
out to the edge of the Rose Garden, where President Eisenhower had installed a putting green a decade earlier. Looking down at the floor, he drew
Wilkens's
attention to the still visible pock marks that had been left by Ike's golf shoes, and then said, "Look what that son of a bitch Eisenhower did to my floor!" He then smiled and slapped
Wilkens
on the back. This was the closest he could come to an apology.